2006-07-28

Thank you Scott & Becky for having wireless!

I am a happy woman! I am sitting in the living room of our good college friends, Scott & Becky. (Normally when we are furlough we stay here, we sit in the living room and fold laundry and watch TV. Scott and Becky are currently showing us up and spending 2 1/2 weeks in Norway for their 15th anniversary. I think we'll be lucky if we go out for dinner! Anyway, I digress....)

As I was saying, I am sitting in the rocking recliner in the living room, with my laptop in my lap and I'm connected! I have felt very disconnected from my normal world the past few weeks. And oh yeah, I also have a bowl of ice cream. There was no chocolate sauce, but one scoop of chocolate and one scoop of cherry chocolate something will do. My hubby was kind enough to dip it for me.

I feel like I need to write about 30 pages to cover everything that has been going on since we've been here. We arrived in the US four weeks ago yesterday. I highly doubt I'll remember everything I have wanted to say at once, so there will probably lots of rambling etc.

Even though our furlough has been much better emotionally than the last one, I can feel it begin to wear on me. Our family is together almost 24/7 and I have begun to lose patience when the kids squabble and that sort of thing. Right now I'd like a day in our own home. I'd like to hunker down on my couch with a good cup of strong coffee and frothy milk.

Now that we are almost halfway through our furlough, I've been trying to stay off the "fund-raising-roller-coaster" when you wonder if the money to cover the deficit and the monthly support is going to come in. You wonder what you should be doing more, or better. It's a hard balance remembering that we are responsible to share the opportunity, God is responsible to get the money in. Yet I think deep inside of us we worry that come the end of August, the numbers will come up short.

America can woo you into kind of a half slumber, where you are lulled by ice makers and cold water direct from the fridge door. People are so good to us, treating us to meals and spoiling us generally. You get kinda used to the remote-control doors on the borrowed minivan. You go shopping at Walmart and feel kind of like Madame Blueberry in Stuffmart. You go on a quest for the perfect girlie computer bag. Yikes.